John Pinder obituary

John Pinder wrote several books on Europe including Britain and the Common Market, 1961, and Europe Against De Gaulle, 1963.
Photograph: Garry Weaser

My colleague and mentor John Pinder, who has died aged 90, was a pioneer of public policy studies and a prominent British proponent of European federalism. He wrote many books on Europe, was an elected president of the European Federalist Movement and an honorary professor at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium. There he taught a number of people who later became supporters of the European Union, including the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg.

With his dapper military moustache and immaculate charcoal grey suit, John was seen by his federalist friends as a stereotypical Englishman, but in fact he was a proud Scot.

The son of Harold, an army officer, and Lilian (nee Murray), he was educated at Marlborough college and King’s College, Cambridge, where he studied maths and economics, emerging as a thorough Keynesian. After second world war service in the West African Artillery, in 1950 he became a press officer at the Federal Union. He moved to the Economist Intelligence Unit in 1952, rising to be its international director five years later. In 1964 he took up the post of director of Political and Economic Planning, a thinktank that later became the Policy Studies Institute. He remained in that position until 1985.

His books on Europe included Britain and the Common Market (1961), Europe Against De Gaulle (1963), The EU & Russia: The Promise of Partnership (2002), and, as a joint editor, Multinational Federations (2007). He was appointed OBE in 1973.

He will be remembered fondly by those who share his advocacy of a positive role for Britain in Europe – above all a federal Europe. He was a greatly admired example to me and many others who are active in academic and political life.